The first Roman Catholic church built since the Cuban revolution in 1959 opened its doors over the weekend, CNN reported on Sunday.
"To see this finished is like coming out of the night into the day," said Rev. Cirilo Castro, the Cuban priest who supervised construction of the church in Sandino. "We knew it would happen one day."
The new church is one of three authorized by the communist government as part of a warming with the Vatican, according to CBS News.
A new church in Havana has not yet been completed and another one in Santiago is still in the beginning stages of construction.
Soon after Fidel Castro took power 60 years ago, he shut all parochial schools, sent priests to reeducation camps and drove organized religion underground, according to CNN.
But after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Castro started the process of easing restrictions on religion and allowing people to worship freely.
The St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Tampa raised nearly $100,000 to help build the new church, construction of which began about four years ago.
The church seats about 200 people, and its bright yellow exterior makes the building stand out among the drab Soviet-style apartment buildings in the town, located on the western part of the island,
"From the day they put the first stone we have been watching it grow little by little," said Sandino resident Aleida Padrón Zabala, who attended the church's first mass. “Patience has given us this church.”
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