In Canada’s National Post, Fr. Raymond de Souza compares them

Earlier this week Pope John Paul II passed Pope Leo XIII on the papal longevity list, vaulting into third place in history, behind St. Peter himself and Blessed Pius IX (1846-1878). Leo served 25 years and 5 months, exactly one hundred years before John Paul II. Elected in 1878, he saw in a new century before his death in 1903, and though he is now largely forgotten, many of the great achievements of John Paul echo the pioneering ways of Leo. It was Leo who first saw that the public influence of the Church in the 20th century would be neither political nor economic, but primarily cultural. And it was he who began what one historian would call the “human rights revolution” in the Catholic Church.