Twenty-five tonnes of scrap metal are at the heart of a major religious recycling project - the plan is to transform them into the first Catholic church built in Communist Cuba since the 1959 revolution. The beams were once part of the stage built for Pope Benedict XVI's historic visit to the city in 2012. The building team need one final permit of five to get started. The days when believers would baptise their children in secret or attend mass surreptitiously in distant neighbourhoods have passed, and even Communist Party members now practise their religion openly. However, since Fidel Castro took power five decades ago the Catholic Church has only renovated existing properties or rebuilt where old ones collapsed. New churches were never sanctioned. Nowadays, local Catholics meet to pray in private houses and are struggling with gradually increasing numbers. Across Cuba, the Catholic Church says around 60% of the population are baptised, though only a small fraction regularly practise their faith.