short SF: The last class action suit

It was ironic: behind their high bench, the row of judges looked almost like a depiction of ancient gods.
15 years ago, this scene would have been unthinkable. By 2041, it was inevitable.

The world had just kept on changing, until change became the new normal. Conservatism had gradually become radical.
There were some precedents for this type of cultural inversion: The overthrow of Easter Island culture after the European epidemics arrived, the enigmatic burial of the Gobekli Tepe temples, anticlerical purges in the French and Russian Revolutions.

The new global consensus was almost as unanimous as it was inevitable: every religion was a lie.
Now, it was only a matter of what to do about it. Justice should punish.
Almost every remaining religion had been charged with conspiracy and fraud. Their most energetic defenders had been members of various newer cults, including Scientologists. They had scrounged up a large portion of their accumulated wealth to put up a joint legal defense.

A gavel pounded with an echo in the vast courtroom (it had once been the world's greatest church).
The judge spoke. "All the parties have presented their evidence. At the special request of the lesser defendants, we will now wait five minutes for the Unindicted Co-Defendant to appear and present Their defense. If there is no appearance, we will then render our verdict."