There are an estimated 400, 000 to 600, 000 Christians in Iraq, with most belonging to ancient eastern churches.
But he also reached out to the Eastern Orthodox Churches and spoke up for Christians persecuted in the Middle East.
Casmoussa is a member of the Chaldean Church, part of a group of independent but related Eastern Catholic Churches that accept the pope as their head.
He apologised to Jews for Catholic passivity during the Holocaust, prayed at a Syrian mosque and took steps to heal the rift between Catholics and adherents of the various eastern Orthodox churches.
Aside from Scherer, other leading Latin American possibilities include Argentine Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, 69, head of the Vatican's office for Eastern rite churches, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, and Brazilian Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, 65, who has earned praise as head of the Vatican's office for religious congregations.
The Chaldeans are Eastern-rite Catholics - autonomous Churches of Eastern origin which retain their own liturgy and traditions, but recognise the Pope's authority.
This is obligatory for priests of the main Roman church (but not for former Anglican clerics, or for most of the priests in Eastern-rite churches that also come under papal authority).
It was a fitting finale to the journey: Turkey's eastern border, perhaps to be Europe's new eastern frontier, ancient churches and mosques rising like tombstones out of the long wild grass.
Their Church split from the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches in 451AD because of a theological dispute over the nature of Christ but is now, on most issues, doctrinally similar to the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The art of these churches encompasses elements which demonstrate the relation between Eastern and Western Christian Art.
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