Many of us who are Catholic don't understand the workings of the Church, either.
The Roman Catholic Church is not a corporation in which the Pope is CEO, the Cardinals are Senior VPs, etc. Each bishop is essentially the autonomous head of a church which, by virtue of being in communion with the Holy See is considered part of the Universal Church. This is why the ordination of a bishop is such a serious matter for the church since once he is validly consecrated a bishop has an extraordinary independence and latitude and there's essentially nothing Rome can do in practice to "reign in" a rogue bishop short of reassigning him to another diocese where he may do less harm.
The church historically has always taken the long view and from the perspective of the hierarchy it's always been better to "wait out" a bad bishop and let nature take its course then to risk schism by attempting something too heavy-handed. For most of church history when life moved at (by modern standards) a glacial pace this was a very practical and workable policy. But today the pace of life has quickened and this policy is less viable than before. It's one of the reasons this Pope and his predecessor have spent so much time on "re-evangelizing" the faithful.