the pilot had the enemy plane in his sights

Readers usually see the lead picture and read its caption first, before reading the lede of the article, so the article lede should not be a repetition of the caption.

[…] early modern Catholic theologians needed to curb the tendency of overswearing in order to institutionalize and regulate the oath more firmly as a sacrament of power.

The phallic symbolism of the finger has long been popularly used. The middle finger is commonly held up as an ithyphallic insult, as is the thumb in the sign of the fig. The ancient Romans called the middle finger impudicus, lewd.