A recurrent line of thought in Patrianovism is the nostalgia for the past, not for the Empire, but pre-independence Brazil, where – they believe – all of the great things such honour, dignity, greatness, etc.- were left. The position the Church held in the past was also attractive to the patrianovists. However, in the present, that is, the time after the military republican coup of 1889, the country was left morally and economically in ruins, with the decline of national identity.