Humility vs. Hypocrisy

In his first speech to the public, the then newly elected Pope Benedict XVI said:
Dear brothers and sisters, after the great Pope John Paul II, the Cardinals have elected me, a simple and humble labourer in the vineyard of the Lord.
So was he a monk living in some cave for the past 50 years? Not exactly: he became a Cardinal 28 years ago and head of the Inquisition (OK, they don't actually still call it that) 25 years ago. This "simple and humble labourer" has spent his life in the church as professor, politician, and very senior bureaucrat. Does this kind of dissembling bother anybody else, or is it just me?

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