This is true, but let’s not forget that some abbots are considered the local ordinary as well.
Well…yes an abbot nullius would be a local ordinary relative to the territory of the abbacy nullius the Holy See has still left to him but there are only some nine remaining in the world by my count and they are in Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Hungary. If there is actually a reader on this page from the village around Monte Cassino, Monte Oliveto, Subiaco, Grottaferrata (and who is Italo-Albanian), Pannonhalma, or Einsedeln, I would be glad indeed if they raised their hand as I should be delighted for the chance to say hello.
I haven’t had news of the disposition for Korea in years, which was the only instance of this phenomenon left outside of Europe. In the European cases, their respective territories has been so reduced that effectively the abbot nullius has, for all intent and purpose, no one to be local ordinary to, except possibly a resident gardener or lay caretaker living somewhere on the grounds. I remember when they redistributed Monte Cassino’s abbacy holdngs a couple of years ago.
Of course, like any major superior of a clerical religious institute of pontifical right or society of apostolic life of pontifical right, all abbots are ordinaries with regard to their own subjects but not local ordinaries, which I understood to be the focus of the original poster and that the question was about some issue s/he had or at least could realistically have.
The two territorial abbacies of North America have long been gone…the United States since the 70s and Canada since the 90s.
Of more relevance actually, because they are more numerical, would be those who are equivalent in law to a diocesan bishop…but, again, I make the practical presumption that this website does not really have all that many readers in places such as Fiji or Tahiti. It is sort of like predicating my answer to a question, assuming that there is a disproportionate number of people reading this page who dwell, for ecclesiastical purposes, in Antarctica.
That said, you are certainly correct.
