I was talking about bishops, not cardinals. Different animal altogether. There are, +/-, 150 cardinals in the whole world. There are how many thousands of bishops?
You are quite right in that the pope knows all of the episcopate that are nuncios. And he bloody well is very, very familiar with the Cardinal in charge of the Secretariat of State (that is over all them).
My point is that the systems that a given pope manages (or fails to manage) is the primary blame here.
Again I disagree, I think the "man" (Bergoglio), not the "systems" is the primary blame.
After all, the dictator pope has managed to take control of all "systems" (e.g., the Congregations of the Church) under his authority, and even those religious communities that should have been outside of his immediate usurpation of authority , e.g., the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate and the Knights of Malta.