Handle protected content element visibility in template

Hi,
is it possible to handle protected content element visibility in template?
Suppose to have a download content element available only for a specific membergroup: i'd like to show content element presence, but printing something like 'content available only for X group members'.

In templates I see that there are $this->protected that values 1 if ce is protected, and $this->groups that seems serialized object that i suppose contains groups that can have access to it... but I can use that variables only if i can see the ce, otherwise not.

thanks

Davide