granted select works in psql but not via jdbc

I'm trying to set up a system where users will be limited based on their access.  To do this I'm querying db_roles and if an exception is thrown, they're not a db admin.  The problem is that I've done this:

grant select on pg_roles to db_mid_level_admin;

then any member of the role db_mid_level_admin can query db_roles using psql, but when I try it in jdbc it throws an exception (permission denied for relation pg_roles).

Same user, different behavior in psql vs jdbc.  I can't make this admin level superuser because then they'd have access to some stuff they shouldn't.  Thanks.

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